Istanbul was once Constantinople

Once in Istanbul, I found my way to my friend’s place, got to see her for a few seconds as I was early enough to catch her on her way to school, and then crashed.  About noon, I woke up and decided to go sightseeing.  I was quite proud of myself for remembering so much of what Istanbul looked like and actually was able to get around fairly easily.  I strolled through the Spice Market, Grand Bazaar, through the Hippodrome, by the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, but quickly realized that I did not sightseeing alone nearly as much.  

Shots of the Spice Market/Egyptian Bazaar

 It was blazing hot, and I was sweating mercilessly, so I decided to add a new cultural twist to my adventure and check out the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art.  Sadly, the air in there was stifling, but I did see some beautiful art, including giant carpets, beautiful books, and some gorgeous furniture meant for holding Korans.  My favorite exhibit was the ethnographic area which recreated the inside of houses of various types from around Turkey.  It highlighted women’s work, like dying and weaving wool while also showing me how a yurt worked.  After that, I decided to take a real break and head to my favorite place for Turkish delight.  Yes, Turkish delight is real and is usually made of nuts (pistachios are the most common) covered in a flavored sugary gummy compound which can then be covered with powdered sugar or coconut.  It’s much better than that description makes it sound, and I have come to the conclusion it is soooo much better fresh than when bought in a sealed tourist box so I limit my enjoyment to when I can get it fresh.  I got a sample and some tea and enjoyed both as I watched a family struggle to make purchases.  They bought a lot, but the boys wanted everything, and the parents took forever to find a box they thought would survive an airplane ride.  I got there after them and still left first.

Tea and Turkish delight

Eventually I wound my way to Taksim to meet my friend.  When we met up, we strolled through the main street of shops, restaurants, and street performers and caught up.  Eventually we decided to find a place for dinner.  One lucky salesman found the magic words of “salad bar 6 lira”; beautiful words to two girls whose colons had suffered from a severe lack of vegetables for months.  We piled our plates high with delicious veggies and then shared a main dish.  We were two bednieri gogos (happy girls).  

SALAD BAR!!!!!!!

The next morning we set out to find an epic Turkish breakfast.  My friend is a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain so when I saw he had a Turkish breakfast recommendation near my friend’s place, we ventured over there.  It was not cheap for breakfast, but we stuffed ourselves with the various kinds of bread, cheese, pepper-covered vegetables, and honey butter while looking out over the water.   They also continually served you fresh Turkish tea, so I had seven.

Our amazing Turkish breakfast

Full of delicious food from the Kale Cafe

After we could eat no more, we walked along the waterfront, seeing all sorts of men fishing, swimming, and lounging.  We only saw one woman daring to go into the water, but we saw more of her than we wanted.  We passed by an old Roman fort and eventually made our way back to the touristy area.  One of my goals for Istanbul was to buy lots of scarves.  By myself in the Grand Bazaar, I easily got overwhelmed, but with a friend, it was easier.  It was still crazy hot, so we frequently tried to cool ourselves off with stops for fresh squeezed juice and even a trip to McDonald’s for the AC.  We met up with another TLG friend that night, went to a more local part of town, took a funicular up a hill, and paid too much for tea and a great view of the Golden Horn.  We wandered around that area a bit and then made our way down through some houses.  The only negative experience of the trip happened then, but it is much better described by my friend here.  I did feel special finally making it into her blog, since her blog was one of the more popular ones in TLG.  I also was unaware we had a certain reputation for misadventures, but, as this blog probably shows, we deserved it.

Getting over the incident, we found a place to eat.  We started talking and it turned into another fabulous Georgian night, where talking to expats whiled away the hours.  Unfortunately, once we stepped out of the restaurant, we were reminded we weren’t in Georgia anymore but in Turkey, where public transportation apparently stops about midnight and taxis are not as cheap or easy to come by.  We split a cab to a more central location, said goodbye to the one friend, and then, thanks to a family, made it on the last tram on the night to Taksim, where we again caught what was probably the last bus to my friend’s neck of the woods.  Once there, I showered and packed.  We did not get to sleep until past 2, but since it was my last night on my adventure, it was worth the short amount of sleep.

Thankfully I made it to the airport just fine the next day. For some reason, there were about 7 layers of security for American flights, but I passed them all.  After an extremely long day with no sleep, I eventually ended up in Springfield.  It took my bags another 3 days to get home, but neither will be leaving America anytime soon. TSA searched my bags but did not touch the chacha.  They did however trade my beautiful red leather belt for a red HTC battery, which I'm not so happy about.

Right now I’m just trying not to turn into a pumpkin at 10pm and trying to make decisions about my life here, so processing has taken a bit of a back seat.  This may be the last blog post, or I might have more reflections or extra stories I never told.  Either way, thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed the ride almost as much as I did.  It’s been an incredible year.

Mountain Adventures Sandwiched by too Much Time at the Tbilisi Airport

The Tbilisi airport is tiny for a national capital, but the even stranger part about it is that it’s busiest when all sane people are asleep.  I flew in at 2 and had a flight to Mestia, the capital of Svaneti at 11, so borrowed the free wifi and then headed to the Astroturf underneath the escalators.  Don’t ask me why there is Astroturf in the airport, but I joined the legions of tired travelers who have napped there.  When I arrived, the airport was bustling; by the time light shined through the skylights, waking me up, it had thinned. By the time I was supposed to be on a flight to Mestia, the place was deserted.  Thankfully, two friends had shown up by then.  Unfortunately, they delayed our flight for two hours before canceling it because there were too many clouds.  We knew that they canceled this flight regularly because of bad weather, but too many clouds?  Really?

Tired and unhappy, we had to go to another part of town to collect my money for the tickets, then get on a marshrutka to Zugdidi, whence we could take a Mestia marshrutka the next morning.  Somehow we won the baby lottery, or lost, more accurately, so we had about 6 screaming toddlers on our marshrutka.  They were pretty good once we got going but one mother decided the best way to calm her screaming child was to soothe her with lullabies. I would have been all for this except her idea of lullabies were Selena Gomez’s ‘I Love You Like a Love Song’ and Maroon 5’s ‘Moves Like Jagger’, both of which are terribly overplayed in Georgia and don’t soothe my nerves, let alone a small child’s.  Regardless, we finally made it to Zugdidi, only to find a storm had killed the power.  I had to scramble to find a place that would let me top up my internet so we could find a place to stay.  A while later, we found a hostel and they said they would call the marshrutka drive to pick us up there the next morning.  Finally, some good news!

I woke the next morning to a text from another friend who was supposed to come to Mestia to meet us.  Georgia was due for 3 days of storms, so he and his friend were putting their trip on hold.  Great.  Storms.

The storms next adversely affected our trip when we spent well over an hour on the marshrutka sitting on the road in the middle of nowhere because a storm had taken a chunk out of the road and sent it rolling down the mountain.  I was getting a sincere feeling Georgia was either mad at me for leaving or mad that I had returned.  Either way, I was getting punished.

Thankfully, when we arrived in Mestia, one of the people from our homestay came to pick us up and took us to the lovely home we would be staying in for the next few days.  2 friends who had arrived the day before soon arrived and then we were treated to a massive meal that exemplified Georgian’s culinary skill.  As the day was still drizzly, we just walked into town to check things out before coming back home.  The 10-year-old, Ananano (Ana) who lived at our homestay, also showed us their adorable kittens and bunnies.  I don’t like cats, but these were pretty cute.  I was quite happy when the bunny just let me hold it, even if it did get my white shirt dirty!  We ate another huge meal and called it a night pretty early.

Even I will admit this tiny kitten is cute.

We got up early the next day to hike to and past the cross, a walk people say is gorgeous.  Unfortunately, while the weather was cooperating enough to keep the rain at bay, the clouds were enveloping all the prettiest mountains.  By the time we made it to the “lake” at the top, the cloud was enveloping us, to the point that if we got separated, we could not see each other.  Still, we somehow managed to spend 9 hours hiking around some deserted and beautiful mountain areas.  We were exhausted by the time we got home so did not make it much past another delicious dinner.

View at the Cross.  Do you notice how the clouds block all the good stuff?

At the lake

 

The next day, one friend left early and the rest of us took it easy and then got a ride to Ushguli, the highest permanent settlement in Europe.  Some people debate that it is the highest settlement and another friend debates whether it is Europe, but regardless, it was pretty epic.  The ride there can only be undertaken in SUVs and other suitable vehicles because at times it is overtaken by water or landslides.  We stopped along the way to take pictures of the beautiful scenery and even got to venture inside a Svan tower at one point.  When we got to Ushguli, it was muddy and dreary, so we walked around a bit and then went to the café, thinking we would explore more once we had a cup of tea in us.   

Svan tower we stopped at on the way

Ushguli

Ushguli, with lots of Svan towers

 The place was deserted except for the two girls who worked there until we decided to order, when a Georgian man brought some tourists in.  Eventually, he started talking to us and we learned that they had a true Soviet collective going on. There was a Russian who lived in the Czech Republic, another one who lived in Moldova, a guy from Baku, and an Armenian (I believe), as well as a Georgian girl, who seemed to be their guide.  The Georgian man was from Tbilisi and, in true Georgian style, bought us wine, chacha (hard alcohol), and food.  They toasted us, and we toasted them.  The experience was delightful, very Georgian, and restored my love of Georgia after the past few rough days.  We spent so long in the café that we had to head home after that, but none of us minded since the café had given us an excellent Georgian experience and we could all feel the chacha. Once we arrived in Mestia, we were greeted by an amazing rainbow.

That night, at dinner, the family just kept bringing out food so our table was full of the supra stack-when you stack plates of food somewhat pyramid-like on top of each other because the table is not big enough for all the dishes, usually something done at supras.  Every meal we ate there was amazing and basically supplied me with all of my favorite Georgian dishes save two, but dinners were extra large.  We only ate 2 meals there and had no idea how anyone could eat 3.

The last full day we tried to go to the ATM but found that it was not working.  We walked around in search of Svan salt, a brownish mixture that I brought home but have yet to try, and Svan gum, pine resin that tastes kind of like furniture and sticks to your molars.  The experience was sweetened by he fact that we could only find the Svan gum at a 'store' that was really a converted van.  Being a small town, there was only one ATM in Mestia so we then headed home.  Thankfully, even after our purchases, we had enough money to get us all home so then went on another hike with little Anano as our guide.  She claimed we were going to see rive and “ice”.  Turns out, we hiked to the glacier friends had talked about.   While the glacier refrained from calving in front of us, it was still awesome to see water rushing out below the blue ice.  

Close-up of the bottom of the glacier

 Even though the hike was much less intense than the one to the lake, we were exhausted since our muscles were still aching from the hike to the lake.  As it was our last night, the host family had set out chacha alongside our immense spread for dinner, so I enjoyed one last night of toasting Georgian style.  We all grudgingly agreed to finish the bottle, since anything else would be silly, and commented on how strong it was since it made all of shudder until a few shots in.   

Dinner for 4

We had to wake up at 4:30am to catch the 5am marshrutka, which, of course, did not leave until after 6am.  It also tore down the twisting mountain roads, giving me one of the few severe bouts of nausea Georgian roads like to provide.  Thankfully I survived and we rolled into Tbilisi in the afternoon.

My last few days in Georgia were spent between Tbilisi and Manglisi.  Rain hampered me from doing too much in either place, but I got to say a few goodbyes, buy a Georgian cookbook, and soak up what was left of my Georgian experience.  At home, I mostly relaxed and spent a bit of time with my host family.  Saying goodbye to them was quite sad, but I got pictures with all of them except my host father, who was not home when I left.  About an hour before I left, my host family and favorite neighbor came in to give me gifts.  My host family gave me a clock, which is certainly designed for babies, that had a sweet message about good friends on it.  That’s why they had bought the clock for me, and I felt quite touched.  My neighbor gave me some apple-shaped toothpicks, and my host brothers gave me some beautiful but incredibly heavy drinking glasses. Somehow everything fit.  My host sisters and a neighbor walked me to the marshrutka.  Of course, it was one I had never seen before and was much nicer looking than most of mine, but the drive drove so fast that I hardly got to appreciate my view for the last time.  I ran a few last-minute errands and had dinner with friends, eating khinkali and drinking Georgian wine one last time.  When I got to the airport, I had to pay quite a bit for excess baggage but made it to Istanbul just fine.

The EU is First World, Part Two: Prague and Budapest

Sitting in the Tbilisi airport again, writing another blog post.  As much as this should be a time for reflection on Georgia, I’m writing about Prague and Budapest or else I’ll never do it.

We hopped on a plane from Rome to Prague, enjoying Smart Wings, one of the budget airlines that abound in Europe.  It was a direct flight and then we were picked up by a guy holding a sign with my dad’s name.  Not sure I’ve ever gotten such deluxe treatment before, even if I did request and pay for it.  He spoke great English and spoke to us about Euro 2012, since the Czech team was playing Spain (or was it Portugal?) that night and he was hoping they didn’t lose but realistic about it.  It made me realize that being in Georgia had opened my eyes to non-Georgian things Americans don’t care about, as I could follow his talk about players and the championship in general.

Our hotel was on a lovely Art Nouveau-lined street, as are many of the streets in Prague.  Basically you walk from adorable street to adorable street, which is exactly what we did the next morning on a 4-hour walking tour.  We did get a break in the middle for lunch, which we turned into a stop for Coke Light, a Czech pastry, and a beer that had elderberry and lime.  I mean, I’m not a fan of beer and don’t deign to drink girly beers if I’m going to drink it, but how could I pass up the chance to have a drink with elderberry?  The tour was great, covering most of the historic parts of the city as well as throwing history and culture at us for 4 hours.  We ended the tour and tried to soak in a bit of it all in a vineyard overlooking the city.  Then we went to find tickets for a classical concert.  They abound in the city, mostly appreciating the excellent acoustics of all the beautiful churches, so we had to choose between several.  My dad, who loves rock music more than almost anything, also is a fan of classical music, so this was one of the rare things he got excited about.  The concert was pretty amazing, as was the church we sat in, right off the Charles Bridge.

The next day we headed back to Prague Castle to actually enter the buildings.  Several of them were cool, but what I remember most was getting to see the window where one of my favorite events in European History happened.  There were actually 2 Defenestrations of Prague, but the one in 1648 started the 30 Years War.  Defenestration is throwing someone out of a window, so in 1648, the Protestants ruling the city at the time chucked 3 Catholics out the window.  They all survived, but the bloodshed began anyway.

We then walked across the Charles Bridge again, since it was so cool, and finally started spending my dad’s hard-earned money on important things like earrings.  We headed back to Old Town Square to snap a few more pictures, but Hyundai, a major sponsor of Euro 2012, had set up a stage where people could watch the soccer games.   Theoretically, before the game a band played songs from the two competing countries, but we heard Queen and some other bands that were clearly not from Italy or Germany.  Still, the experience was pretty cool.  We then grabbed some food and headed to the train station a bit early.

If you walk into the top floor of the train station, it looks like a ghost of another era.  It is a crumbling showcase of a golden era for Prague.  The beautifully-decorated interior is poorly-lit, deteriorating, and empty.  Then you take the stairs down to a sleek, modern train station.  We hung out for a few hours with some other travelers, mostly Americans, and I stole wifi from the closed Burger King before our midnight train.

My parents are troopers. I had planned on us taking an overnight train because I love trains and it was the only sensible way to get from Prague to Budapest.  We did not get the sleeper car because it was full but got what was the equivalent of 2^nd class in Russia.  The whole arrangement was a bit different than I was used to, but we had a lovely Korean in our compartment who also had never taken a night train in Europe before.  While most of us got too little sleep and all suffered from the incredible noise of the train, we survived.  Our new friend did not hate us after a night of listening to snoring and even gave us some chopsticks as a gift upon parting.

We survived but were not raring to go when we got picked up for our tour of Budapest.  Oh, did I mention my dad caught a cold in Rome and I woke up with it in Prague?  It added a fun spin to the whole adventure.  That, plus the night of little sleep, meant I could barely keep my eyes open as we toured Budapest.  Thankfully, this tour was mostly on a bus and required minimal walking.  Sadly, after a week of stellar guides, we had an old man whose English left much to be desired.  He spoke much better Spanish and had to conduct the tour in both languages.  While that was impressive, I was more than a bit disappointed, since several aspects of Hungarian history still seemed a bit fuzzy.

Exhausted, we ended the tour and went to crash in our luxurious rooms.  Since Budapest is not yet a tourist hot spot (it’s on the verge) and prices are still well below Western European prices, we got a lovely suite, and I got my own.  (Thanks again, Dad!)  I appreciated the wonderful bed and delightful shower.  We then grabbed some food on Vaci Utca, the main tourist drag, before heading to the water for our cruise.  We were in a sea of Russian tourists as we enjoyed a delightful one-hour cruise along the Blue Danube.  It more than made up for the tour earlier that day, as it included a free drink, gave us history about the buildings along the Danube, and showcased the beautiful sights of the river.  As I had hoped, we were able to see the riverbanks as the sun set and the city started to light up at night.  It was absolutely fabulous.

Less fabulous was the eye problem that had started earlier that day and the next morning was an unavoidable case of pink eye.  Thankfully my mom and I were able to communicate to the pharmacist my problem.  It made me realize how much traveling has opened me up to trying new things as I was not positive the Hungarian medicine was what I needed when I started smearing it into my eye.  Google later confirmed it was.  We were supposed to take an Art Nouveau tour that morning but the guide never came, which was fine because none of us were particularly excited about another tour.  We wanted to visit the House of Terror but it was closed, as it was Monday.  My parents easily gave into my love of Soviet statues and we took a taxi to Memento Park, which houses grandiose communist statues from around Hungary.  Hungarians decided not to smash them all, but put them on display away from the city, which was a great idea as some are impressive works of art.  There were several statues of Lenin but none of Stalin because in the 1956 uprising, the sole statue of Stalin in the country was destroyed.

The weather decided to cement the day as not what we had hoped and as we were walking along Vaci utca, it started to rain.  We ducked into a restaurant with a covered garden area.  They also provided blankets so we were able to sit, drink Hungarian wine, eat delicious food, and watch the rain pour around us as we smugly enjoyed our warmth and dryness.  All too soon, it was time to say goodbye to my wonderful parents.

After they left, I was feeling less than stellar and decided to hole up in the nicest accommodations I had had since leaving home.  Flipping between CNBC and BBC, I sat in bed and enjoyed first world luxuries as I sipped my tea and steeled myself for a return to Georgia.  I explored more on foot the following day, giving me a greater appreciation for how beautiful Budapest really is, and then headed to the airport for the long journey back to Georgia and the even longer journey to Svaneti, the jewel of Georgia.

The EU is First World, Part 1: Rome

Forgive any non sequiters, rambling, typos, or grammatical errors as this was written on a midnight flight back to Tbilisi and 3am in the Tbilisi airport does not exactly make for good editing.

 

This was a very different type of travel than the trips I’ve become accustomed to taking in the last year: no friends, two parents, a much larger budget, and three European capitals.  I met my parents in Rome, the Eternal City, and the city that’s been on my bucket list the longest, more specifically, since eighth grade, when I started taking Latin for the first time and fell a little in love with the Roman Empire.  As I got to plan the trip, there was a definite focus on the ancient world; aside from the Vatican, my itinerary mostly revolved around buildings that predated the fall of Rome in 476, so Baroque churches were mostly shelved for another trip and tour guide.  My affable parents were happy to be led to ancient sites, especially since I had planned a more leisurely itinerary than I had for our England/Ireland trip six years earlier.  We mostly walked around the day I arrived, since my 7am departure meant I had stayed up all night one last time with good friends in Tbilisi and therefore I was suffering from more than your usual jet lag.  The next morning we headed to one of the four major churches (Maria Maggore) and listened to a few minutes of mass as we admired the gorgeous church.  It was only the second mass I had ever heard, and it seemed fitting to hear it in Rome.  We then toured the Catacombs of San Clemente, which meant we got to ride out on the old Appian Way, a fact which pleased me almost as much as the tour of the catacombs.  I also appreciated that both my mother and I envied the bikers we passed and thought how lovely it would be to bike the Appian Way.  

 We also toured the Basilica of San Clemente, the 4^th century basilica underneath, the 2^nd century Mithraic temple under that, and a 1^st century room with no obvious purpose but with water still running through the ancient lead pipes.  The 4^th century basilica was probably my favorite.  In addition to the first written Italian, “Pull SOBs, pull” on a fresco about St. Clement, Cyril and Methodius also got some love.  I believe they are buried there but I mostly found plaques from Slavic countries as the brothers helped Christianize the Slavs and Cyril created the precursor to the alphabet that now bears his name (for those who can’t connect the dots, Cyrillic is the alphabet for languages like Russian, hence the fact this delighted my nerdy heart).

We ate dinner with a friend of mine from St. Louis who was also touring Europe (and the DRC) with her family.  Georgia has taught me that the world is much smaller than you think, and this reunion confirmed that fact a little more.

 

We had to rise early on day two to tour the place I was most excited to see.  If I could describe in one word why I’ve wanted to see Rome, Colosseo would do it.  The Colosseum, even after being used as a quarry for centuries, was still a spectacular sight.  From the gladiator’s area underneath to the third tier overlooking the forum, the world’s best-known amphitheater was impressive.  The Romans knew what they were doing: they developed a canopy that provided shade and some air flow, built in some protection against earthquakes into the building, and created the Colosseum as a powerful political message to erase some of the injustices of Nero’s reign.  If only Titus hadn’t had to sack Jerusalem to pay for it…

We also toured the ruins of the Forum and the palaces on the breezy Palatine Hill, but after the glory of the Colosseum and several hours in scorching Rome heat, these were great but not as exciting.

That afternoon we got a special tour of the Scavi, the excavations underneath the Vatican.  In addition to some of the best-preserved pagan tombs, the Scavi holds a unique and beautiful early Christian grave with stunning mosaics that still gleam with gold, some parts of Constantine’s 4^th century basilica, and, as the Catholic Church has always held, the resting place of St. Peter.  Excavations only began in the 1940s and originally were not supposed to go under the altar, and they were done by hand in secret.  The pope at that time was all in favor of the excavations and gave the go-ahead to excavate under the altar when they got close.

A brief aside about the layers of the Scavi, from the bottom up.  After Peter was crucified upside down, he was buried nearby in a pagan cemetery, since those were the only cemeteries around.  It was a cemetery for freedmen, and it was never a desirable place to be buried until centuries later under the Catholic church.  Peter was buried in a simple grave with two slabs in a V formation over his body.  Christians quickly started making pilgrimages to the site, even though it posed significant danger to them.  The pagan cemetery built up around his grave.  Either to disguise Peter’s grave, or to mark it as a grave that had been accidentally damaged, a small red wall and small temple (OK, I forget what they called it but it has two small columns and a roof) were erected over Peter’s grave.  Constantine built a basilica over the spot, taking the tops off of the cemetery rooms and filling them in with dirt, perfectly preserving the tombs for posterity, giving his church a firm foundation on Vatican hill, and mostly abiding by the Roman law that forbid destroying graves.  He built his altar on top of Peter’s tomb, and on the level of a basilica is a wall scratched with what looked like graffiti but a lay scholar took about 10 years (she thought it would take about 2 weeks) to determine that the scrawled writing said ‘Peter is here’ more or less and had symbols for Peter, Christianity, and the papacy repeated over and over.  They found bodies nearby; at least one was a woman, but one was a man with no feet whose general physical characteristics matched those of Peter’s.  Bits of royal cloth, cloth that pilgrims had dropped over the centuries, and soil that matched that underneath the temple-like structure below were all found with the body to give about as conclusive empirical evidence that the bones were Peter’s as we can really ask for.  On top of this is Bernini's masterpiece and the current altar of St. Peter's.  The tour was fascinating on a historical level as well as a spiritual one.

We hit up the Pantheon on our own.  Many guides will tell you it is their favorite building in Rome.  I liked it but did not see quite why it got such rave reviews.  Someone told me that the Pantheon is praised as a perfect building but upon further inspection, it actually has several flaws which we’ve copied in buildings around the globe for centuries.  Since the Pantheon was converted from a temple to all the gods into a church for all the saints, it survived being taken apart by industrious Romans intent on building projects so is the oldest building in continuous existence.  I mean, it is pretty cool.

We then toured the Vatican.  To be honest, while I did appreciate seeing in person some art I had only seen in books and on posters, I mostly felt anger toward the (mostly Renaissance) Catholic church that had spent its money on building a priceless art collection instead of carrying feeding the poor and taking care of widows and orphans.  It makes sense when you view the Catholic church as the heir to the power of the Roman Empire, but not as the church built upon a simple fisherman who walked with Jesus.  I got a much greater appreciation for St. Peter’s basilica the day before when I looked up into it from a medieval chapel built over the bones of St. Peter than I did walking around in it after seeing the Sistine Chapel, Raphael’s masterpieces, and a ridiculous amount of ancient works.

We had a Context Walk of Ostia Antica the next day.  Ostia Antica was the port city of Ancient Rome and grew to have over a million inhabitants in its heyday.  The Tiber silted up and the town dwindled, with its streets and buildings astonishingly well-preserved.  Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable and even took us to the current summer’s archeological dig of the synagogue.  (Context Walk guides are academics and our guide has lived in Rome since he was a Fulbrighter there a few decades ago.  He’s even taken Rick Steve’s around Ostia Antica and other places.)  While it was pretty cool to walk around a real archeological dig, the painfully slow work, multiple comments about graduate students as the modern-day equivalent to ancient slaves, and blistering summer sun made me very glad I never decided to become an archeologist.

We also explored other nooks and crannies in Italy, tried the metro, threw coins over our shoulders into the Trevi fountain, delighted in strawberry gelato from the corner restaurant, tried new Italian delicacies, and bought our fair share of tourist gifts.

There’s much more of Rome for me to explore on a future visit but I enjoyed this first taste and have only written a basic account of our adventures.  I also realized how accustomed to the chaos of live in other countries I’ve become.  My father graciously paid for several taxis for our convenience but hated every ride because he was convinced we were going to die in a new accident every few seconds while the driving seemed downright sane after Georgia.  He also fretted over the line management (or lack thereof), which again seemed mild in comparison to Georgia.  The service at restaurants seemed better than what I was used to, since I was thrilled to be given my own personal menu with decent English translations, while my parents felt the opposite, missing the tip-induced service they were accustomed to.

TLG "Graduation"

On Friday we had a “TLG Certificate Ceremony”.  It was done in typical TLG fashion.  Last Saturday, an email invitation was sent out.  I read ‘Sheraton’ and the ability to take a free day off school to hang out with friends and agreed.  Others were much more reluctant, so there was a firestorm by Tuesday when TLG called to demand people’s presence at the suddenly ‘mandatory’ event.  Since it was the 2^nd to last Friday and people had things planned at their schools or travel plans for one of their last weekends, they were not pleased about the ‘mandatory’ nature of the event.  I was mostly curious as to how TLG was going to arrange transport for me as they had promised, since no one really lives near me.  When I saw that they were arranging transport from my regional center, I shrugged and figured I would just take my marshrutka into Tbilisi as usual, since I can easily get there but not to my regional center.  On Wednesday, my regional rep called to tell me that my director had been told she was responsible for getting me to my regional center.  Then, not one but two different teachers came over to tell me what the plan was.  My director does not speak Russian and both of the teachers do, but I have no idea why she sent two emissaries with an easy message.  Since it meant I had to be ready by 7 and my director had to hire a taxi to take us to Tetriskaro, I called my regional rep to ask if I could just get to Tbilisi on my own.  She freaked out a little, so I just agreed to go with TLG.

With two teachers coming to explain what was going on, my family knew I was going to Tbilisi.  My grandmother thought I was going on Thursday, so she woke me up at 6:30, asking me why I wasn’t awake.  I eventually figured out what was going on, told her I still had a day, and fell back asleep.  I woke up on my own at 6:15 on Friday, reluctantly got out of bed, and found that my grandma had gotten everything ready for me to eat breakfast.  She also ordered me to drink tea and not to leave hungry.  Have I mentioned I adore her?  I started eating at 6:45 and heard a car.  I looked to see who it was, afraid that a car this early could only have one purpose.  I was right; the car stopped at our house, so I quickly finished my tea, finished packing, and was out the door within five minutes.  My director tried to chat with me but I only know so much Georgian and was much more content that early to admire the gorgeous scenery.  We arrived at 7:40, 20 minutes early and were let into the regional Educational Resource Center.  After a few minutes, four other volunteers and their directors arrived.  It was interesting to finally meet the people in my region.  They were all male and lived in places I had never heard of, most of whom lived closer to another ‘city’ but were technically in my region.  It was nice to chat with them a bit, which we did until the bus finally showed up at 8:40, instead of at 8.  We then drove to Tbilisi so we could drive to Rustavi, the capital of Kvemo Kartli, and we picked up all the people from Rustavi, which gave me a chance to chat with more friends and people I slightly knew. 

Once at the Sheraton, we took a few minutes to register and then delighted in oversized coffee mugs and Western breakfast treats like croissants and apple pastries.  I caught up with a few more friends until it was time to “rehearse”.  Yes, we had assigned seats and had to rehearse.  This is when we all felt like it was a graduation.  We practiced walking on stage, had a few minutes’ break, and then watched the press pour in as the Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Science entered. They both gave good speeches in English, including the first legitimate total for TLG I have ever heard (over 1500 volunteers have come from over 40 countries), jokes about how the most TLG-Georgian marriages have happened with volunteers placed in Samegrelo, and how the program has succeeded despite a host of skeptics.  The press left with them, so the event became more a way for the TLG staff to thank volunteers than the press stunt we were all assuming it to be.  After a few more speeches, walking on stage for real, and a slideshow the staff had put together against a very fitting and very cheesy song about making a difference (TLG’s motto), we were unleashed into the lobby for more food and wine.  We were all hoping for Western food but got renditions on Georgian favorites that did not last long.

Thus, with a few friends, I went again in search of lobio khinkali.  This time we were successful, and it was delicious, although we agreed it would have been just as delicious as plain lobio or lobiani (lobio means bean so these are all bean dishes).  That night, four of my closest friends from my group and one friend’s girlfriend returned to the Machaxela next to our training hotel.  A long night of appreciating Georgian dancing, toasting with copious amounts of wine, feasting on food we could now order in Georgian, and reminiscing ended like one of the last nights of training: we headed next door to the beer garden.  We did not stay out quite so late as during training, but still managed to get in several more toasts and another khachapuri.  As several of us remembered that someone had requested “My Heart Will Go On” when we were here in August, we asked for the song to be played, the only time I probably ever have and ever will do that.  Thankfully, it now will remind me of Georgia and not merely middle school.

The day was a splendid one, and was a good reminder of all that this year has encompassed: making a difference in my school and community (I hope), making lots of good friends, having a lot of great memories with the people I’ve met here, and (hopefully) having grown a lot as a person.  I know I’ve changed a lot, especially since one friend said she couldn’t imagine me as anything other than a social butterfly, which made me laugh.  No one has ever called me that before.  A horrid experience in an expat bar recently reminded me of why I hate going out in America and made me question if all the boldness, risk-taking, and friendliness will disappear once I return home or if these changes are permanent.  Regardless, they have made for a wonderful year in a fascinating country with great friends.

A Visit from Home Prompts Reflections on the Idea

I was talking with a friend yesterday about leaving Georgia and our futures, and she said that Georgia felt like home.  I have definitely been thinking about that, even if the thoughts have not crystallized thus defined in my brain.  In many ways, my life in Georgia is not as comfortable as life in the West, but there is a comfort in the familiarity of it now.  I knew I could wait until a week before my friend came to visit to ask my host mom for permission for my friend to stay because it would be shocking for a Georgian to refuse a guest (of the same gender in terms of overnight guests).  I can tell by the landscape approximately where I am on my marshrutka rides home from Tbilisi.  I can apparently sing along to a Justin Bieber song, which would never be possible in America.  I can leave my possessions on a marshrutka without fear of them being stolen.  I understand most of the strains of conversation in my family.  Tea with cheese and bread is now extremely comforting and salads of tomatoes and cucumbers seem more normal than Caesar salads.  I have come to understand, at least in the ways I can, in the subtleties of life here.  There are still times when I feel as though I will not understand Georgian culture, but they often stem from not being able to fathom the why behind something or how Georgians endure what they endure, instead of a surface-level shock at customs and practices. 

Now that my days are numbered, I find myself clinging more to this little patch of earth. I feel as though I am clenching my fist around grains of sand, which slip through my fingers even more the stronger I try to hold onto them.

I had a delightful 2-hour impromptu visit to a colleague that shed a lot of light on who she is and how she’s interacted with me this year.  It made me regret not taking more of an interest in her before and also further clarified why my school does not feel as welcoming as other schools.  The teachers are always nice to me, but more and more, I find myself doing my own thing.  This colleague described the “collective” she had experienced at her other schools previously.  The Russian word works much better than the English, but in essence, my school lacks the community that is often present at other schools and other TLGers have described, mostly in that they are included in events.  My school does not have a lot of events or parties or even impromptu gatherings, and I’m more often than not totally clueless about said events when they do occur.  Granted, I am probably gone for most of them, but my school just isn’t that way.  It made me realize that my colleague, seeing that lack, was reaching out in order to be welcoming but also to reach out to someone else whose life existed beyond the small village we both now call home.

I also have realized how much I have come to love Tbilisi. 

This is the door that welcomes new arrivals at the airport.

 No, it lacks the flash of most major capitals, but I love its ancient buildings and run-down bits more than the newly rebuilt sections of town.  I smile when I see its monuments at sundown, take great joy in counting how many Orthodox churches I can see from a rooftop, and love that I can navigate certain parts of the city better than I can almost any stretch of Springfield.  I have realized that Georgia’s beauty to me is in its rundown, undeveloped ruggedness.  When international corporations splash their billboards along roads outside of the big cities, blocking views of unadulterated mountains and valleys, I think I will weep. I see that future in my lifetime, and I hope that Georgia does not lose that untamed quality that has preserved life from another era.  Yes, Georgia must modernize, but I hope that it does not do so at the expense of its history and natural splendor.

Old and new in Tbilisi

Old Town Tbilisi

As I knew it would, having my best friend come visit me gave me fresh eyes to understand how familiar and dear Georgia had become to me.  Before I went to the airport, a friend at my hostel told me she had a friend coming in about the same time.  She had described me to him and described him to me (Asian-North American) and figured we could split a cab, since otherwise he was just going to sleep at the airport until the buses started running.  I was more than happy to oblige, especially since it meant I had someone to talk to while waiting for my friend’s delayed flight.  It also seemed so very Georgian, or totally normal here but something that would never happen at home.  I will miss things like that, when the world feels very small in very good ways.

On the first day, I took her to Mtskheta, the ancient capital, and had my friend there be our tour guide for the day.  We hiked up to Jvari Monastery, since the climb makes the church that much more impressive.  It was easier than I remembered, and the walk down was aided in its loveliness by the kilo of fresh cherries we had bought in Tbilisi.  Then I introduced my friend to lobio and let her taste lobiani in its homeland.  We got to play the ever familiar “hurry to get the 6pm marshrutka home” game I play every week, and then I showered her home.  As we lay in bed, she turned to me and said, ‘I don’t know how you do this’, which I thought was funny since I had just thought about how impressed I was that she was handling everything so well.

The next day, I showed her around Manglisi, which was more a chance to catch up and talk like we always do than much of a tour.  It was a wonderful day nonetheless.  My host mom made mchadi that night, which was a special treat.  We had gone into the kitchen to say hello to my favorite neighbor and her daughter and found the cornmeal cakes sitting there and were told to eat.  I was pleased by this surprise and in general pleased that, although they did not interact a lot and I had to play translator, my host family and friend seemed to be happy with one another.  I then took my friend to school.  I tried to include her a bit in the first lesson and realized that most of my friends probably do every day what she was doing, sitting there (bored) until the teacher includes them in an activity.  It made me thankful that I was able to teach the majority of my lessons.  I also appreciated my friend’s presence because the fifth graders were very well-behaved, which is rare.  Classes were shortened, so I was surprised by the bell, since it was International Defense of Children Day (apparently that’s a holiday here but not enough of one to call off school altogether).  Then, I should have had a break, but instead we went to 2^nd grade, so my friend got to see the chaos that rules the school, and how I have no clue as to how most things will go until they happen.  The 2^nd graders were great as usual and invited us to attend their carnival later that day.  Since we now had extra time and no one ever invites me to anything, I agreed.  We ran home and then came back a bit refreshed.  My 2^nd graders are one of my favorite classes, so I loved watching them play games, dance, and try to make khinkali.   

The girls had to ask the boys to dance for the "White Dance".

The boys had to try to make potato khinkali.

 We snuck out in time for us to pack and eat some tea, bread, and cheese before grabbing the 1pm marshrutka.  I showed my friend the most important cathedral in Georgia, Sameba.  It’s shiny and new, but I still like it.  Then we met up with friends and got our marshrutka to Kazbegi so my friend could get a taste of the Caucasus mountains.  Since Georgia does not mesh well with plans, I had no place for us to stay that night, but even before we had left Tbilisi, we had negotiated a homestay.

Our homestay turned out to be wonderful.  We could see Mt. Kazbek from the house and had plenty of room.  Dinner that night was delicious.  When we told our host that my friend was a tourist and we wanted her to try chacha, her face lit up and she procured for us a half-full bottle of homemade chacha, to which we introduced my friend.  I was also so pleased that she got to see why I have loved Georgia, as we stayed up until almost 2am sitting around the dinner table chatting.

First shot of chacha

We got up early the next morning to climb to Gergeti Trinity church, by far my favorite church in Georgia.  I love it because it seems like a Georgian church ought to.  The light pierces the dark of the church, slicing it from a high window, creating a beam straight to the door, as if God himself was beckoning worshippers to enter.  I would have taken a picture, but the holiness of the church does not allow for cameras, cell phones, pants on women, or any leg at all, just reverence and awe.  The darkness, divine smell of beeswax, unintelligible incantations of the priests, and quiet adoration of devout worshippers give the church a holy presence I have not felt anywhere else in Georgia.  Perhaps the sacrifice made to reach it or the natural beauty surrounding it help. For whatever reason, I was glad to return and pray in a church where my prayers feel like more than just a flickering flame in front of an icon.

Gergeti Sameba Church

By the time we got to the Gergeti church, Mt. Kazbek was shrouded in clouds, but the views were still stunning.  We enjoyed them for a while and decided to keep on trekking, as we had risen early so that we could hike to a nearby glacier if possible.  After another hour and a half, my friend’s feet were killing her, and a few of us were starting to wonder if it was worth it.  When it started to hail, we staged a mutiny, and all but two of us headed back.

The marshrutka back gave us some friendly Georgians and an overly friendly (read aggressive and annoying) Georgian to chat with. We had to decline an invitation for khinkali (dumplings) and pretend to sleep to ward off unwanted attention.  About an hour away from Tbilisi, the annoying Georgian found a new crop of foreigners to talk to, as several newly-minted TLGers got on our marshrutka.  I got to talk to one of them for the rest of the ride.  Her three weeks of Georgian experience made me realize how far my understanding of the culture had matured.

Thus back in Tbilisi, we had time for the baths, the one thing my friend had expressed interest in trying.  We all were also in need of a good cleansing.  So, the three of us girls headed to the baths.  I knew the best baths were closed because construction had ripped up the street in front of them.  I also knew that the public baths were little better than public showers, so we were all willing to shell out a bit more cash to indulge in the luxury of the Royal Baths.  For 50 lari (about $30), we got a private room for an hour.  We paid a bit extra for a scrub or massage, which basically meant an overweight Georgian woman in pajamas took a rough mitt and scraped off my top layer of skin and then rubbed something that frothed with bubbles over me.  My friend tried the massage, and although she described it as being violated in ways she had never been violated before, she enjoyed it, and we all considered the hour a great success.  We then attempted to eat at a restaurant which had lobio (bean) khinkali, which blew the minds of all of us when we heard about it.  Khinkali are usually filled with seasoned meat, but potatoes, mushrooms, and cheese are also possible.  Sadly, the place was packed, so we stuffed ourselves at the Russian place nearby.  Exhausted, we called it a night.

The next day, I had made plans for three of us to go to Gori and Uplistsikhe, an ancient cave town near Gori.  Time and tired feet meant we only made it to the Stalin museum and the Cake House in Gori.  I got to play tour guide, since the actual tour guides were busy with actual tourists.  When I had gone in December, my friends and I made up half the visitors at the museum.  On Sunday, the place was full of tourists, which was rather surprising.  My friend, who does not share my love of things Russian and Soviet, did not seem nearly as intrigued by the museum and Stalin’s private rail car as I was, but I enjoyed taking her nonetheless.  

Finally got my picture on Stalin's toilet!

It seemed like I would be a bad tour guide not to show her this facet of Georgian culture.  I was also quite pleased to notice a banner that stated that the museum, which was full of Soviet glory, is going to be turned into a museum of Stalinism.  The museum, aside from what my friends and I like to refer to as the ‘cupboard of repression’ largely ignores anything but what are seen as glorious deeds of one of the worst slaughterers in the 20^th century.  That will be changing, another sign of positive steps away from Georgia’s dark past.

We ended my friend’s visit basically where my Georgian journey began.  I took her to the restaurant next to my orientation hotel.  We went to say goodbye to a few friends who leave shortly and to eat with others.  We went to that restaurant for sentimental reasons but also because they have a live band that plays Georgian music in an atmosphere of old Georgia.  I’m not sure how much my friend got out of the experience other than Georgians will go to dinner at a restaurant to dance.  I was reminded how much I love these aspects of Georgian culture.  I made her do a Vakhtanguri with real Georgian wine glasses and we introduced her to a bit more of toasting culture. 

 After dinner, we finished the night sitting on the rooftop of another friend’s hostel and admired the view of Old Town Tbilisi before crashing.  I will miss that view a lot.

I have already said goodbye to four good friends and am not looking forward to the many more I will say goodbye to in the next few weeks.  I do like that it means more hugs hello are coming my way, but the closer I get to leaving Georgia, the more I want to return sooner rather than later.

The Magic of Borjomi

To be honest, this blog is a little boring.  It's almost entirely a recap of a weekend hiking, with little insight into my life or thoughts on Georgia.  I hope you like it, but if you're bored by it, I apologize.  I'm adding pictures, but words and images both fail in their attempts to capture the magic of Borjomi.

Now that it is spring, people are coming out of hiding.  Last Friday, when I went to catch my marshrutka to Tbilisi, I think I saw at least half of the male population of my village loitering around the main square.  Granted, they’re digging up main street and also building a new Public Service Hall, plus there were about 5 taxis in the center, but that still did not account for the excess of employable males who were there.  Now my daily walks include seeing several students.  When I walked by the park this evening, I saw several mothers with young children there, a sign that summer is surely just around the corner.

main street of Manglisi all torn up

 As a result of the lovely weather, I decided it was time for another adventure in Borjomi, or more accurately, Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park.  It takes up somewhere around 2% of Georgia’s land mass, is the site of my favorite sight in Georgia (the sunrise from the last time I went camping there), and has a decent tourist infrastructure for hiking.  This time around, however, I was more prepared.  One of my friends, who loves botany, was more or less the guide for the weekend.  On Friday night, he, I, and four other friends started our journey.  He gave us a few basic lessons along the way, like stinging nettles hurt but make good tea and sorrel is delicious.  We also stopped at the ruins of a 9th(?) century church along the way.

We made it to the base of the mountain we were going to climb on Saturday and made camp.  Since we had originally planned on making it to a shelter before time got clearly away from us, we decided no one wanted to carry a tent all weekend so figured the open stars were a good enough covering.  While this idea seems fitting for such a beautiful, magical place as Borjomi, it was perhaps not the most sensible idea in drizzly May.  Thankfully, it rained only enough to make us so thankful it did not rain more, and to get everything cold and damp.  We still got a roaring fire going that night and enjoyed a delicious dinner of cooked potatoes, onions, and cabbage.  Some of us also had some vodka to make sleeping on damp ground easier, and it worked like a charm, especially since I had optimistically left my jacket and anything warmer than a thin long-sleeve T at home in the village.  I only woke up once, realized my sleeping bag’s zipper didn’t work, inwardly grumbled about the cold for a few minutes, and then woke again several hours later, wondering who was shining their TLG phone (with an incredibly handy flashlight) at me until I realized that was the sun, and I had survived my first night sleeping under the stars.  Not all my friends were so “well-rested”, so one decided to head home instead of camping, and the rest grudgingly broke camp for our hike.

The first part of the climb was possibly the hardest-steep switchbacks that made us stop probably as much as we hiked for the first hour or two.  Still, it was hard not to marvel at the green beauty of it all.  We got to our night’s shelter around 2, and two of the girls decided they were done for the day, while two of my friends and I decided to finish our intended climb to the top of Mt. Lomi.  I was sore, but I was not about to be so close to climbing to the top of a mountain and backing down.  Shedding our bags, we started climbing along the green trail with more wildflowers around us.   

Two of us headed over to a small church that gave us a view of the valley around Marelisi and Kharagauli, two villages nestled into the park.  Then we walked back to our waiting friend and headed up to the top of the mountain.  My stubborn pride was the only thing that kept me going as my legs cried for rest after about every few feet.  I slowly, very slowly, made it to the top. 

But, that’s ok, because I made it; I CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN.  Yeah, that felt really good. 

Photo documentation of me at the top of Mt Lomi, not the beauty of the area

The view from the top was spectacular.  Mountains and valleys, forests and snow, surrounded me, topped by perfect clouds.  I took pictures but they can’t even begin to capture the beauty of Borjomi, which makes hiking the trails even more worth it.  Eventually we climbed down and chatted as we built a fire.  We went to bed soon after the sun, deciding to wake up at 6:30 to ensure we had time to hike down dreaded trail 6, which had spelled doom for me the last time I was here.

We were cold inside the tourist shelter and so lit the fire in the stove there, but one of my friends woke up in the middle of the night to smoke (inhalation), so she extinguished the fire and saved all of us girls from carbon monoxide poisoning.  We were cold, but alive the next morning.  After another feast including my remaining half jar of peanut butter and halva, we started down.  We were making great time and not feeling too exhausted as we mostly had to hike down, when I made a stupid decision.  Instead of letting us all slink back together at a turn, I thought my friend in the rear saw us turn and had us keep going.  Realizing we had lost her delayed us an hour and made the rest of us all feel very guilty.  Thankfully, we were able to reunite and face the dreaded downhill of trail 6 together.  This time my leg was acting fairly normal so I only fell once, instead of about 9 times, and made it down in one piece.  I was worried, as always on Sundays, about making my marshrutka home, so a friend and I split off early and headed to the exit without our friends.  It was strange, as it meant I had to say goodbye to a good friend in the middle of a forest, on a narrow switchback trail.  Still, the other friend and I were able to make good time through the easier part of the trail, despite the onslaught of rain.  She decided it was God’s way of giving her a shower so she could still make it to church in Tbilisi, since she had not been overly enthused about showing up to a church full of expats after a weekend of hiking and no shower.  The rain had abated by the time we made it to the road, but it and the ticking clock made me decline the 2 offers from cattle herders to share in their food and drink.  (Thankfully, the friends we had left behind were able to share in the herders’ bounty and ended their journey with a well-deserved shot of chacha.)  When we got to the main road, I tried to flag down the next marshrutka to Borjomi, but it sailed on by.  A car behind it stopped and agreed to take us to Borjomi.  I had not tried to hitch a ride; Georgians are just that nice, and I’m sure two wet backpackers looked in desperate need of ride.  The man turned out to be Turkish, so I couldn’t rely on my Russian and had to resort to my abysmal Georgian.  He got us where we needed to go, and we got the marshrutka back to Tbilisi I wanted, after cleaning up and returning our sleeping bags at the BKNP information center.  We had a bit of time to kill in Tbilisi, so my friend and I feasted at a Georgian restaurant, having deserved our khinkali and lobiani.  It was also a good chance to reflect on the weekend and chat one-on-one with my friend before she headed to church, and I headed to the train station for my marshrutka.

I considered it a great victory when I could walk home that night and could walk without wincing yesterday. While the original idea had been to go so we could see the rhododendrons in bloom, they were still not blooming.  Still, the adventure was a success, because many things were in bloom, we all had fun, and no one got severely injured.  I got to test my physical and mental endurance, gaze upon one of the prettiest places I know of, and get to spend some quality time with some good friends.  Here are a few pictures that begin to showcase the majesty of the park.

Speaking of good friends, I am getting two visitors in the next two weeks.  This weekend, a friend from Izhevsk, who is Korean and currently working in Baku, is coming to Tbilisi. I am a wee bit nervous about speaking to her only in Russian, but I’m also excited for the challenge, to see her again after three years, and to show her around one of my favorite cities in the world.  Then, a week from tomorrow, my best friend from America arrives in Georgia for five days!  I’m pretty pumped but also have a little trepidation as to how she will react to my life here in Georgia.  I’ve already realized that my host family’s toilet will require about a five-minute explanation alone.